Evelyn Byrd

“Did I? I’m glad of that.”

“You are a very wicked girl.”

To that statement I made no reply. I accepted it as true, but I was not sorry for it. Instead, I asked: —

“Is he going to die?”

“No. But he is very ill. That is to say, he is suffering a great deal of pain.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“You terrible child! What am I to do with you?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to run away again as soon as I can. You’d better let me stay runaway.”

Small as I was, I vaguely understood that my mother’s first care was for the man Campbell, and that so far as I was concerned, she cared only for the trouble she expected me to give her. If she had loved me a little, if she had taken me into her lap and seemed a little bit sorry for me, I reckon she might have had an easier time with me. But she did nothing of that kind. Instead of that, she managed to make me feel that she regarded me somewhat in the light of a criminal for whom she was responsible.

She set a watch upon me day and night, keeping me practically a prisoner in my own room. That was because I had made the mistake of telling her I meant to run away again. But even as a prisoner, I might have been tractable if she had spoken kindly and lovingly to me when she visited my room, which she did two or three times a day. Instead of that, she always looked at me as one might at a desperate criminal, and she talked to me of nothing but what she called my wickedness, saying that it would break her heart.

Even when I got well enough to go out, I was kept in my room until at last the doctor positively ordered that I should be sent out of doors every day. When that was done, a servant maid whom I particularly disliked was sent with me, under orders never to let me out of her sight for a moment. I was as completely a prisoner out of doors as in the house. But out of doors I could sit down at the root of a tree, shut my eyes, and bring my fairy friends to me. In that way I managed to make myself happy for little spells, as I could not do in my room, for I simply would not ask the fairy people to go to that horrible place.

But this relief was soon taken from me. The servant who watched me, seeing me sit with my eyes shut, reported that I spent all the time out of doors in sleep. She was directed by Campbell, who had assumed control of my affairs, not to let me sit down at all out of doors.

When this was reported to me, I simply refused to go out of doors again, and I stuck to that resolution in spite of all commands and threats. My health soon showed the results of confinement, and the doctor, who was a friendly sort of man, but strongly prejudiced by the bad things he had been told about me, did all he could to persuade me to go out. I absolutely refused. Then my health grew still worse, and finally the doctor insisted that I should be sent away somewhere.

Before that could be arranged, something else happened to affect me. I’ll tell you about that in another chapter.

Chapter the Seventh

THE servant who acted as my keeper suddenly changed her manner toward me about this time. She talked with me in a friendly way, and she sang to me, trying to teach me to sing with her. I refused to do that, because I was unhappy and did not feel like singing. But I rather liked to hear her sing, as she had a pretty good voice. Still, in my childish way, I distrusted the girl. I could not understand why she had been so unkind to me before, if her present kindness was sincere.

She begged me to go out of doors with her, and promised of her own accord that I should sit down and shut my eyes whenever I pleased. After a day or two, I so far yielded as to go out with her for an hour and have a romp with Prince. But I resolutely refused, then or on succeeding days, to sit down and shut my eyes, and call the fairy people. I felt, somehow, that it would compromise my dignity to accept surreptitiously and from a servant a privilege which was forbidden to me by the servant’s master and mistress.

Still, I went out for a little while every day. The girl called our outings “larks,” which puzzled me a good deal, as I knew there were no larks in the town. Finally, one brilliant moonlight night, as I sat looking out of the window, the girl, as if moved by some sudden impulse, said: —

“Let’s go out for a lark in the moonlight. I’ll put your cloak and bonnet on you, and it will do you good.”

I consented, and we quickly made ourselves ready. Just after we had got out of doors, I noticed that the girl had a satchel in her hand; and when I questioned her about it, she said that she wanted to make believe that we were two ladies going to travel; “and ladies always have satchels when they travel,” she explained.

We wandered about for a little while, and then the girl led the way to the extreme corner of the grounds, a spot which could not be seen from the house even in the daytime, because of the trees. There was a little gate there, which opened into a road, and the girl proposed that we should pass through it for some reason which I cannot now remember.

We had walked only a little way beyond the gate when we came to a carriage which was standing still, with a big man on the box and a tall, slender man standing by the open door of the vehicle. When this man turned his face toward me in the moonlight, I recognised him. He was my father! He stooped and put his arms about me tenderly, laughing a little, as he always had done when talking with me, but stopping the laugh every moment or two to kiss me. Then he told me to get into the carriage so that we might go for a drive. When I had got in, he gave the servant girl some money, and said: —

“If you keep your mouth shut and know nothing, there’ll be another hundred for you. I shall know if you talk, and if you do there’ll be no money for you. I’ll send the money, if you don’t talk, in two weeks, in care of the bank.”

Then we drove away in the moonlight, and I found presently that the girl had put the satchel into the carriage. I learned the next morning that it contained some of my clothes, and my combs and brushes.

We travelled in the carriage for several hours, and then got on board a railroad train, which took us to Chicago.

Chapter the Eighth

WE hadn’t been many days in Chicago when one morning about daybreak my father waked me and said that Campbell was after me, so that we must hurry. My father had bought me a lot of things in Chicago – clothes of many kinds, and a few books. I reckon he didn’t know much about clothes or books – poor papa – for all the clothes were red, and the books, as I now know, were intended for much older people than I was. But he said that red was the prettiest colour, and as for the books, the man that sold them had told him that they were “standard works.” I remember that one of them was called Burke’s Works, and another Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I simply couldn’t like Burke’s Works, but I reckon that was only because I didn’t know what Mr. Burke was talking about. I reckon I didn’t understand Gibbon very well, but I liked him, because he told some good stories, and because his sentences were musical. I liked Macaulay’s Miscellanies for the same reason, and I liked Macaulay’s History because it was so simple that I could understand it. Best of all, I liked Rasselas, The Vicar of Wakefield, Robinson Crusoe, and The British Drama, and Shakespeare – at least, in parts. I liked to read about Parolles, and the way he was tricked and his cowardice exposed. I identified him with Campbell, and rejoiced when he got into trouble. I suppose that was wicked, but I’m telling you all my thoughts, Dorothy, so that you may know the whole truth about me and not be deceived. I liked Falstaff, too.

I liked Rasselas, because in his happy valley there was no man like Campbell. And I liked Robinson Crusoe for the same reason. Somehow I liked to live with him on his island, because I knew that if Campbell should land there, Robinson Crusoe would shoot him.

But above all, I liked the British Drama, because it opened a new and larger life to me than any that I had ever known.

When my father waked me up on that morning, I hurriedly packed my books and clothes into a trunk. There were very few underclothes, for my father knew nothing about such things, but there were many red dresses and red cloaks and red hats. And there were two fur coats – big enough for a grown woman to wear.

We got on board a train and travelled all day. Then we took another train and travelled all night, till we came to the end of the railroad. Then we got into a cart and travelled three or four days into the woods.

Finally we came to a camp in the woods, where my father seemed to be master of everything and everybody. There were Indians there and half-breeds, and Canadian lumber-men, for it was a lumber-camp. There was a Great Lake there, and many little lakes not far away. I reckon the Great Lake was Lake Superior, but I don’t know for certain.

There were no women in the camp except squaws and half-breeds. They were pretty good people, but very dirty, so I could not live with them. My father made the men build a little log house for him and me, and he made them hew a bath-tub for me out of a big log. Then he hired a half-breed girl to heat water every day and fill the tub for me to bathe in. As for himself, he jumped into the lake every morning, even when he had to make the men cut a hole in the ice for his use.

I liked the lumber-camp life because I was free there, and because there were big fires at night, like bonfires. One of them was just before my door, and my father made an Indian boy keep it blazing all night for me, so that I might see the light of it whenever I waked. I used to sit by it and read my books, even when the snow was deep on the ground; for by turning first one side and then the other to the fire I could keep warm. And the Canadians and the half-breeds and the Indians used to squat on the ground near me and beg me to read the books aloud to them. As they all spoke French, and understood no word of English, of course they didn’t understand what I read to them, but they liked to hear me read, and it was sometimes hard to drive them away to their beds, even when midnight came.

They taught me French during the year I lived among them. You tell me it is very bad French, and I reckon it is; but it was all they knew: they did their best, and I reckon that is all that anybody can do. At any rate, they were kind to me, and they taught me all the ways of the birds and the animals. I tried to teach them to be kind to the birds and the animals, after I began to understand the wild creatures; but the camp people never would learn that. Their only idea of an animal or a bird was to eat its flesh and sell its skin.

There was a young priest there who knew better, and he ought to have loved the birds and animals. But he used to talk about God’s having given man dominion over the beasts and the birds, and that doctrine perverted his mind, I think. He killed a pretty little chipmunk, one day, to get its skin to stuff. That chipmunk was my friend. I had taught it to climb up into my lap and eat out of my hand. He persuaded it to climb into his lap, and then he betrayed its confidence and killed it. I was very angry with him. I picked up an ox-whip and struck him with it twice. I was only a little girl, but I had grown strong in the outdoor life of the camp, and it doesn’t take much strength to make an ox-whip hurt.

There was great commotion in the camp when this occurred. The people there were very religious in their way, but they seemed to me to worship the priest rather than God. They didn’t mind sinning as much as they pleased, because they knew that the priest would forgive their sins on easy terms; but they thought that my act in striking the priest with the ox-whip was a peculiarly heinous crime. Perhaps it was, but I can’t even yet so look upon it. They regarded him as a “man of God”; but if he was so, why did he deceive the poor little chipmunk, and persuade it to trust him, and then kill it cruelly? Dorothy, I am not a bit sorry, even now, that I chastised him with the ox-whip.

[“Neither am I,” wrote Dorothy in the margin of the manuscript.]

But the occurrence created a great disturbance in the camp, and so my father had to take me away, for fear that the lumber-men would kill me. Curious, isn’t it, that while they were so religious as to feel in that way about the priest, who after all was only a man, they were yet so wicked that they were ready to commit murder in revenge? But those people were very ignorant and very superstitious. They thought some terrible calamity would fall upon them if I were permitted to remain in the camp. I think they cared more about that than they did about the priest. Even those who had been kind to me, teaching me to ride bareback and to shoot and to fish and to make baskets, and all the rest of it, turned against me; so that my father had to stand by me with his pistols cocked and ready in his hand, till he could get me out of the camp.

Chapter the Ninth

FROM that camp my father took me way up to Hudson’s Bay. We travelled over the snow on sledges drawn by dogs, and I learned to know the dogs as nobody else did. They were savage creatures, and would bite anybody who came near them. But somehow they never bit me. They didn’t like to be petted, but they let me pet them. I don’t know why this was so, but it was so.

We did not remain long at Hudson’s Bay – only a few weeks. After that, we went somewhere – I don’t know where it was – where the whale-men came ashore and rendered out the blubber they had got out at sea.

You must remember that my father had many interests. He owned part of the lumber-camp we had stayed in, he had a fur trade at Hudson’s Bay, and he had an interest in some whaling-ships. Wherever we went, my father seemed to be at home and to be master of the men about him. I admired him greatly, and loved him very much. I wondered how my mother could have left him and married Campbell. I am wondering over that even yet.

It was while we were at Hudson’s Bay that I began to understand something about my father. He sat down with me one day (he didn’t often sit down for more than a few minutes at a time, but on this occasion he sat with me for nearly half a day) and explained things to me.

“I want to tell you some things, little girl,” he said, “and I want you to try to understand them. Above all, I want you to remember them. You know sometimes I have a great deal of money, and sometimes I have none at all. That is because my business is a risky one. Sometimes I make a great deal of money out of it, and sometimes I lose a great deal.

“Now, when your mother left me, I made up my mind to provide well for her and you, so that no matter what else should happen, you and she might never come to want. You see, I still loved your mother. I insured my life for a large sum, and as I had plenty of money then, I paid for the insurance cash down. You don’t understand about such things, and it isn’t necessary that you should. But by insuring my life and paying cash for the insurance, I made it certain that whenever I should die, a rich insurance company would pay you a big sum of money; I had purposely made it payable to you and not to your mother, because I knew you would take care of your mother, while she could never take care of anybody or anything. I also bought some bonds and stocks and put them in your name, and placed them in a bank in New York.

“Now, I want you to pay close attention and try to understand what I tell you. Here are some papers that I want you to keep always by you – always in your little satchel. Always have them by you when you go to bed, and always lock them up by day. Take them with you wherever you go.

“This one is my will. It gives you everything that I may happen to own when I die.” With that, he handed me the papers.

“This one is the life-insurance policy. When I die, you, or whoever is acting for you, will have to present that to the life-insurance company, together with doctors’ certificates that I am really dead. Then the company will pay you the money.

“This one is a list of the securities – the bonds and stocks – that I have deposited in your name in the Chemical Bank of New York. You see, it is signed by the cashier of that bank. It is a receipt for the bonds and stocks. So you must keep it very carefully.